Oneida's Sukosh Fearon proves he's human first and blind second

By Mike Jaquays

Monday, April 1, 2013

ONEIDA >> Ever a jovial fellow, Sukosh Fearon constantly greets friends both old and new with a hearty "good to see you!"

People who don't know him are sometimes taken aback by that salutation, as Fearon has been blind since he was an infant. He doesn't let that hold him back, however, and is a regular sight during fair weather, walking the streets of Oneida to his job at NBT Bank. His constant smile and congenial demeanor are infectious.

Fearon, whose full name is Robert Henry Fearon III, was born in 1953 to Bob and Ada May Fearon of Oneida. His father was in the Air Force at the time, so his pregnant mother went to Japan to be with him. Their son was born in Japan two months premature and weighing in at a mere couple of pounds, prompting hospital personnel to call him "sukoshi," which in Japanese means "little one." He might not be as small today, but the name has stayed with him all these years.

He wasn't born blind, but the pure oxygen pumped into his incubator at the hospital is believed to have killed his optic nerves -- an instance that was all too common back in that time.

"There was an epidemic of blind children back then, and they were just starting to realize the oxygen could be having an effect on them," Fearon recalled.

When his parents decided to send him to the New York State School for the Blind in Batavia, they hit a roadblock when he wasn't accepted. But they were adamant, and his father went to the state Legislature and argued with the Department of Education that it wouldn't look good for the son of a veteran of two wars to be denied educational opportunities.

The youngster began his classes at the school in September 1958.

Fearon said everyone attending the school was either blind or partially sighted, and they stayed on campus in dormitories because their homes were all over New York. Many went home only at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and in the summer. Fearon was able to get home to Oneida often, he said, and only spent about half of his weekends on campus.

He gained lifelong friends at the school.

"I really got to feel like I was brothers and sisters with the kids there, and our friendships have lasted to this day," Fearon said.

They were just typical kids, he explained, and enjoyed their recreational activities like any other youngsters. Fearon remembered he used to like to punch a ball up onto a roof and then field it when it came back down, and to play a game with friends where they would bounce rubber balls into the waste basket and the sink in the dorm room. They played Frisbee soccer by kicking the disc across the floor, and liked roller skating.

Sometimes they got a little over-creative -- like the time they made up a game that entailed kicking a ball around inside the skating rink, and some of the lights ended up shattered, Fearon recalled.

It was at the School for the Blind that he started taking piano lessons, although he admitted he never liked reading Braille sheet music. He developed his talents to where he could hear a musical passage a few times and then duplicate it. Fearon said musical accomplishment was expected at the school.

When he was a teen, his parents decided the best way for him to reach his goal of attending Syracuse University was to attend public school, so Fearon came home to go to Oneida High School for his junior and senior years. He graduated in 1972, ranked 81st out of 181 students in his class.

He attended the Newhouse School at Syracuse University, majoring in radio and television broadcasting, and graduated in 1979. Fearon worked at WAER radio station, starting his announcing career under name "Sukosh Lanier."

That pseudonym actually came as an accident, he admitted -- another announcer didn't know his real name was Fearon. But when he pointed out that his name wasn't really Lanier, they decided to keep the new alter ego.

Fearon sings and plays keyboards, currently as a solo act and with the band Handpicked. He is a longtime bank employee, starting with the Oneida Valley National Bank part-time during high school before going full-time in May 1981 and working at Alliance Bank and now NBT Bank as the banks merged over the years. Currently his job entails office work, including disassembling stapled papers for copying, he said.

He is always enthusiastic when telling friends about the newest technology available to the blind, like the reader on his computer that tells him aloud what he types and also reads what appears on the screen. He has a talking watch and alarm clock telling him the time. But a lot of times he doesn't need anything special, using solely his instincts. Fearon navigates easily the nearly-mile long trip to work and out to lunch at nearby eateries by locating area landmarks, and impresses many with his ready identification of the familiar people he meets by only a few spoken words.

Today, Fearon is the treasurer of the New York State School for the Blind Alumni Association. He is also a member of the Canastota Lions Club, a service organization dedicated to improving the lives of the sight and hearing impaired, and is the regular guest at meetings of the Oneida-Sherrill Lions Club, where his wife, Pat, is president.

The story of his meeting Pat is the stuff of romantic legend.

Fearon was hitchhiking one day along Route 81 in the mid-1970s -- a common practice for him -- when a man stopped to pick him up. That man turned out to be Pat's late husband, Lyle Malbouf, and he decided to give Fearon dinner before driving him to his destination at the 1,000 Islands. He brought Fearon to his camp, where Pat made him dinner.

Malbouf passed away in 1992, but that chance -- or not so chance -- encounter changed the lives of both his widow and Fearon. In 1994, Fearon was playing in a band called Savannah and arrived at a benefit in a taxi. Pat was taking tickets at the door, and a fellow musician told Fearon to sit with her. Fearon kept patting her on the knee, Pat recalled, and then she gave him a lift back to his house.

He borrowed a cassette tape from her, and then returned it with one of his own. He asked for her telephone number, but Pat initially was hesitant. She asked what they would do about "the age thing," and Fearon said they could both be tested -- he had misunderstood her, thinking she said "AIDS thing."

Fearon responded by asking what she thought about the "blind" thing, and her answer stays with him to this day. She told him, "you see better than people with 20/20 vision because you see the real person."

The couple married on Sept. 16, 2000.

Although Pat chuckled a bit when he proclaimed it, Fearon said he appreciates all his wife does for him.

"She's my darling-darling, and I never take her for granted," he said.

Fearon said one of his favorite sayings is, "Inch by inch, life's a synch. Yard by yard, life is hard." That motto reflects his life's philosophy, and he said that belief along with his Christian faith have made him happy.

He hopes others can find the same internal happiness.

"Every day is a clean slate, and we all have a lot to be happy about," he said.

He wants people to know his blindness doesn't impair his ability to make friends.

"I want people to know it's all right for them to talk to me if they want to talk to me, they don't have to talk to me through Pat," he said. "I'm just like them -- I'm a human being first and blind second."

Fearon plays a variety of music, from country to rock to gospel. For bookings, call him at 363-4460.